Little clicked for Josh Allen in a tough contest Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
Yet he nearly managed to willing the Buffalo Bills to a victory before an interception in the final minute sealed their fate in a 23-19 loss.
Allen took back-to-back sacks on the team's final possession, resulting in a fourth-and-27, but Buffalo (7-4) picked up 44 yards on a short pass from Allen to Josh Palmer, who flipped a lateral to another teammate.
After a pre-snap infraction led to a fourth down situation for Buffalo, a Texans defender picked off Allen’s throw at the Houston 9 with under half a minute left.
We possessed a chance to come out on top there at the conclusion,” Josh Allen said. “We did a good job of hanging tough and our defense saved us a couple of times. We’ve got find a way, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for Allen to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst on eight occasions and pressured four other times. The QB threw for 253 yards with a pair of picks and zero scores after accounting for six TDs in a win over the Buccaneers last week.
Whenever they pressure our QB a dozen times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach Sean McDermott said. “I don’t like that stat at all. It is not a safe way to play and it’s not a good way to keep our quarterback healthy for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Josh Allen was slow to get up after a tackle in the opening two quarters. He indicated he was OK and that his shoulder “lost some feeling” after he fell on it in an awkward manner. He was asked about being hit so frequently during the game.
“It’s not fun,” he remarked. “I encountered a couple personally. I need to be more effective at throwing the ball away. Too many times, I was losing ground.”
Allen lost 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to top the Houston defense. Another sack occurred when he almost sacked the QB near the scrimmage line, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and pursued him across the field to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to force a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game absent receiver Coleman after he was once more a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their previous contest. He was previously held out for the first series of a defeat to the Patriots in Week 5 after also being delayed for a team session.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it one day at a time,” the coach noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we are handling it one day at a time. It wasn’t that it was ignored, but we went with the players that provide the best chance.”
Khalil Shakir topped the Buffalo with eight catches for 110 yards and James Cook had 116 rushing yards and a touchdown.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team couldn’t execute down the stretch.
“Ultimately, we must execute, and we failed to do a good job of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the situation and any circumstance, we need to discover a solution, and we came up short.”
